Picture book biographies

Here's a list of very fine, new picture book biographies as chosen by librarian extraordinar  - Elizabeth Bird.  On her blog, Fuse #8 production.

Mall adventures

I think I've been tapped by a credit card stealer. I was walking in a mall and this woman approached me, told me my outfit looked Parisian. Naturally I was flattered. So I showed her to watch my hand. I actually was showing her that the skirt had POCKETS, but something about her expression made me think that she looked scared. Hmmmm.  
Then we walked down the mall, talking of this and that, and later I remembered that her purse was awfully close to my purse. When I headed up the escalator to the food court, she left, saying she just remembered that she was going to the Apple store.

A few hours later I thought back about the episode and remembered that thieves can steal your credit card number simply by being close to your purse - bumping into it if possible.

Am I worried? No. Because my credit cards are in a RDIF protected carrier to prevent theft. And I decided that the reason she originally looked scared when I put my hand into my pocket was because she may have thought I was reaching for a badge.

(she may have gotten the barcode of my library cards, but since there were three of them piled on top of each other, I can't imagine that she'd be able to make any sense of the jumble of numbers.

Are you shy? So am I

I'm a really shy person.
How shy?
Well, for example:  at a recent writer's convention a group of us who had graduated from a grad writing program decided to get together for dinner.

We set up a place in the hotel to meet.
When I arrived there, another group waiting there asked me to take their picture beside the flower cart bicycle.  Which I did.  Then I sat down to wait.
The other group chatted together for a while.
Finally I texted the group I was supposed to meet --
and the chatting group turned to me --
they were the group I was supposed to have dinner with.
Oh.
I had been to shy to ask them if they were waiting for someone.
Since they were from different graduating classes, they didn't know me by sight and I didn't know them.
If only I were brave enough to simply join a group and talk to them.
But I'm not.
I'm shy.

Old computer files

What do you do about old computer files?
 My husband said - in the 1990s - why do you print everything out? It's on your computer so save it on your computer. 
Well, now I've lost a lot of stuff that I 'saved' on the computer because digitalization keeps changing format. Recipes are gone. (unreadable files) Manuscripts that I didn't print out are gone. 
I'm now going through my (new) computer and testing each file and deleting things that I no longer can open. I did print out everything from college, so now I'm trying to find that stuff on the computer and delete it. (also so much college email I need to delete, because I did print out the important stuff. 
When I moved from the east coast to the west coast, I looked at all the 5 inch and 3 inch floppy computer disks that I had saved, shook my head, and tossed them.

Slight Accident at Storytime

In a discussion on Facebook about Eric Kimmel's books, I offered this story:
 I used Hershel in a story time at my library, and bought myself a menorah to light as the candles were mentioned. Unfortunately  having little money, I bought a little one that used birthday candles. 
So, I'm holding the book, telling the story, occasionally lighting the candles when all of a sudden a mom yells, "It's on FIRE!" I thought - okay. yes. the candles are on fire. She kept yelling and pointing so I looked down and -- one of the candles had tipped out of the menorah and was lying on the rug, still burning. 
Hmmmm. 
I quickly put it back in it's proper place and continued with the story. 
You can bet that the next year I paid the money for a larger menorah that used larger candles in larger holes.  😀